Numic[r] Is Not a Spirant

Abstract

Virtually all scholars working on Numic languages have called [r] a spirant or listed it, without comment, as resulting from spirantization. However, Central Numic shows that [r] results from an early rule of tap formation applying to /t/, with subsequent application of spirantization then affecting other stops. When this analysis is extended to Western and Southern Numic, the result is that in no Numic language has [r] ever belonged to a series of spirants. (Contains 20 references.) (Author) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC).Numic Er] Is Not a Spirant James L. Armagost Kansas State University U.S. DEPARTMENT Of EDUCATION Office 01 Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1211his document has been reproduced as received Irom the person or orgaruzabon origtnattng tt. O Minor changes have been made to improve reproducbon Quality Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent othclal OERI posthon or policy John E. McLaughlin University of California, Santa Barbara Abstract: Virtually all scholars working on Numic languages have called [r] a spirant or listed it, without comment, as resulting from spirantization. However, Central Numic shows that [r] results from an early rile of tap formation applying to /t/, with subsequent application of spirantization then affecting other stops. When we extend this analysis to Western and Southern Numic, the result is that in no Numi.; language has [r] ever 1-elonged to a series of spirants. Virtually all scholars working on Numic languages have called [r] a spirant or listed it, without comment, as resulting from spirantization. However, Central Numic shows that [r] results from an early rile of tap formation applying to /t/, with subsequent application of spirantization then affecting other stops. When we extend this analysis to Western and Southern Numic, the result is that in no Numi.; language has [r] ever 1-elonged to a series of spirants. In this paper we dis=uss languages in the Numic branch of Uto-Aztecan with regard to one facet of the consonant gradations found there.' Specifically, we focus on what is usually referred to as the spirantized series, arguing that one supposed member of this series, the alveolar tap (or flap) (r), is not now and never has been a spirant in any of these languages, and in fact has nothing to do with a process of spirantization. To anyone unfamiliar with Numic languages we may seem to be taking an obvious position, perhaps comparable to arguing that the earth is not flat. Therefore, we first present data from Panamint to show why it has become general usage among Numicists to speak of (r) as resulting from spirantization. We briefly summarize corresponding data in other Central Numic languages and propose an alternative, and we think superior, analysis. We then extend our analysis historically to Western and Southern Numic, and finally to Proto Numic. Our concluding remarks are based on some additional crosslinguistic data. The underlying consonant and vowel system of Panamint is shown in (1).2 We will be concerned with the oral stops, which exhibit gradation patterns when they occur phrase medially. One such pattern is illustrated in (2), where we see a four-way alternation involving the initial stop of the postposition /pa ?an/ 'on'. The first column in (2) gives the citation form Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 18, 1993, pp. 131-142